8 Important Tips – How to find a buyer for your business
How to find a buyer for your business
In order to find a buyer for your business you need to follow the beginnings of any sales process. That is to generate leads through prospecting. Knowing where to start with prospecting for business buyers is very important. You can begin with the following:
- Accountants
- Lawyers
- Business Valuators
- Management Team
- Family
- Friends
- Online Platforms
- Business Brokers
Also checkout another article: 6 Important Facts – How To Sell A Small Business Without A Broker
How to find a Buyer for your Business
Target Prospects
1. Accountants
- Accountants usually have a great network of businesses that they provide services for. A lot of times some of their clients may have the capital to make additional investments through the acquisition of other companies. Whether the accountants’ clients have an active plan to grow their business through acquisition or just overflowing with free cashflow.
- The accountant is going to know. He or she is the best person to interact with to figure out who exactly you should be talking to regarding your business.
- Building a call and email list of accounting firms in your area is a great way how to find a buyer for your business.
2. Lawyers
- Lawyers, similar to accountant have a treasure trove of business clients who may be in the market for acquisitions and usually as clients do, they speak candidly with their lawyers about matters such as these.
- It would be well worth your while to approach lawyers individually to inform them of your intent to place your business up for sale and ask them to please communicate this to any of their interested clients. What would be in it for the lawyer would be the additional fees they would gain once they are contracted to handle that business for their clients.
- Again, building a call or email list of lawyers or legal firms in your area is a great way how to find a buyer for your business.
3. Business Valuators
- Business valuators like accountant and lawyers have a lot of businesses approaching them for valuation services whether it is to get an idea of their enterprise value for banks, insurance companies, courts or buyers.
- Business valuators have an enormous network you can tap into relative to prospecting for buyers who may be interested in acquisitions.
- The sales outreach process is the same really in all instances where you build your callout contact list and email contact list when it comes to how to find a buyer for your business.
4. Management Team
- Sometimes your management team may be interested in acquiring the business. You won’t know if you don’t ask. You may have very competent and financially capable management employees who can acquire and continue the business from you.
- If you are concerned about the vision and direction of your company, this really is the best option in some cases to achieve just that.
- Here you won’t have to worry about putting together a callout or email contact list. All you do is call a meeting with your management team after first discussing with your external accounting and legal experts.
- Once you get guidance and counsel from them, you then have that meeting with the management team about your offer to present the opportunity to them. This is an excellent way how to find a buyer for your business because they are right there under your nose.
5. Family
- This is a touchy subject. I know that in many circumstances family and business doesn’t mix. Many family members do not want to have anything to do with the business.
- Often the wife does not want it, nor do the kids. In some cases, if there is an external family member with the means, there might be some merit in proposing the company for sale to them. Especially if the business was built and meant to stay in the family.
- It should be obvious that this would be a delicate approach as it should be. Nevertheless, it’s a good way how to find a buyer for your business.
6. Friends
- The second more delicate option to family members is friends. Offering your business to friends may not be on the table for some business owners depending on the circle of friends you have.
- If you are the type of business owner that has friends in the same field as you, with the same finances as you, it may be a good option to present the business as an opportunity for them.
- I believe this is a really personal decision but, a very viable option. Putting pride aside, options are options, and it would be remiss of me to not state this as an opportunity for you. Just treat with it the same way you would presenting an offer to a family member. It is one of the ways how to find a buyer for your business.
7. Online Platforms
- The internet over the past few years have opened up many online solutions for M&A bringing sellers and buyers together. Though my pet peeve with these platforms is that brokers tend to flood these platforms with heavily marketed businesses for sale.
- Buyers expecting to speak directly with business owners is an incredibly difficult task, constantly having to cut through the noise of a broker with misguided bravado and their so-called qualification process they turn of buyers with. Despite that, these online platforms can be used by business owners directly and effectively without the need of a broker creating a profile on your behalf.
- Its well worth it to create your own profile and market your business for sale there yourself. It’s the best way how to find a buyer for your business directly.
8. Business Brokers
- Lastly, it’s the broker. I’ll begin with saying that regarding how to find a buyer for your business, this is a great option only if you find a broker worth your time, money and patience. Outside of my disposition towards using brokers, I would still advocate to using only A class brokers to get your business sold.
- You would have to sift through a lot of brokers though, as you should not do business with the first one you find. Like any other business transaction, you’re been involved with, you should have a pipeline that is vetted by you personally, until you find the right one.
- A good business broker can help you clean up your business for sale, prepare an outstanding sales document called a Confidential Information Memorandum or Confidential Business Review.
- They would also have legitimate networks that are filtered by criteria suited to your business as an opportunity, which is exactly what you want from a great broker.
- Think about it. Why would a great broker need to place your business on Bizbuysell or Bizquest if they have a great brokerage or investment bank? Doesn’t make sense, does it? So, pick carefully if you are serious about figuring out how to find a buyer for your business.
“Also….. Do you have an accounting cloud solution to help you get this done?”
In Closing
Ending this article with my first point. Which is, this is about understanding and using the sales prospecting process for generating leads.
In this case I have pointed you in the direction and showed you who you should be contacting to answer the question of how to find a buyer for your business.
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